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In this article, I examine the ways in which young Waorani men in Amazonian Ecuador express specific generational forms of masculinity in reference to past violence, urban intercultural relations, and global film imagery. By drawing on Amazonian and anthropological conceptualizations of “gendered agency,” I consider how emerging masculine fantasies point to young men's reduced ability to demonstrate particular forms of agency associated with male elders and ancestors. I suggest that a Waorani “masculinity crisis” in the wake of social and economic transformation has not led to the gendered antagonisms and violence toward women familiar to studies of “hegemonic” masculinities.

In this article I consider the metaphysical underpinnings of a specific language ideology in Amazonian Ecuador by comparing Waorani ideas about the agency of speech in shamanism and funerary practices to their engagements in language documentation. I relate the notion of language as a force inseparable from the bodies of speakers to concepts of language as "culture" in research to document their language. By considering how Waorani consultants have come to see certain features of their language in video recordings, such as sound symbolism, I examine the differences and interconnections between Waorani language ideology and multiculturalist understandings. These interactions suggest divergent ontologies at the same time as they demonstrate how indigenous people operate simultaneously within contrasting imaginings of differentiation.

In Amazonian Ecuador and beyond, indigenous Waorani people have received considerable attention for their history of revenge killings during much of the twentieth century. In pointing to the heterogeneous forms of social memory assigned to specific generations, the article describes how oral histories and public performances of past violence mediate changing forms of sociality. While the victim's perspective in oral histories is fundamental to Waorani notions of personhood and ethnic identity, young men acquire the symbolic role of ‘wild’ Amazonian killers in public performances of the past. Rather than being contradictory or competing historical representations, these multiple forms of social memory become specific generational roles in local villages and in regional inter‐ethnic relations. The article suggests that, beyond the transmission of a fixed package of historical knowledge, memory is expressed in the multiple and often contrasting forms of historical representation assigned to particular kinds of people. Résumé En Amazonie équatorienne et ailleurs, les peuples autochtones Waorani ont bénéficié d’une attention considérable pendant une bonne part du XXe siècle pour leur histoire de vendetta. En pointant l’hétérogénéité des formes de mémoire sociale associées à différentes générations, l’auteur décrit la façon dont les histoires orales et les performances publiques des violences passées médient des formes changeantes de socialité. Tandis que le point de vue de la victime dans ces récits oraux est fondamental dans les notions de personnalité et d’identité ethnique des Waoranis, les jeunes gens acquièrent le rôle symbolique des tueurs amazoniens « sauvages » lors de performances publiques évoquant le passé. Plutôt que des représentations historiques contradictoires ou concurrentes, ces multiples formes de mémoire sociale se muent en rôles générationnels spécifiques dans les villages locaux et en relations interethniques régionales. L’auteur suggère qu’au‐delà de la transmission d’un bagage immuable de connaissances historiques, la mémoire s’exprime dans les formes multiples et souvent très différentes de représentation historique attribués à certaines catégories de personnes.

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